New online photobank shows life in Šumava

Cesky Krumlov, South Bohemia, Oct 18 (CTK) - Nearly all of 140,000 pictures made by Josef and Frantisek Seidel photo studio from 1884 to 1997 are available online in the Museum Fotoatelier Seidel new database that was created thanks to EU subsidies.

"People can find their ancestors in this database, they can see what the towns and villages looked like a hundred years ago, the development of crafts and trades and farming as well as pictures of common life in towns and in the country," head of the project Petr Hudicak told CTK.

Miroslav Reitinger, head of the Cesky Krumlov Development Fund that has owned the house with the Seidel photo studio since 2005, said not only people from the Czech Republic but also from Austria, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland recognised their ancestors in the photos.

He said the Museum Fotoatelier Seidel tries to contribute to the correction of old crimes and wrongs concerning the Czech-German relations.

Most of the digitised photographs show Cesky Krumlov and the Sumava mountains but some pictures are from various places in the southern part of Bohemia and the neighbouring Austria and Germany.

Photographer Josef Seidel (1859-1935) is considered a chronicler of the Sumava area, making pictures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A number of the photographed places do not exist anymore.